Presently, most air traffic control systems around the world utilize voice communications to transmit various messages between air traffic controllers and pilots. The messages that are transmitted between air traffic controllers and pilots include, among other things, air traffic control clearances, various advisories, and aviation weather service, which help ensure coordination of aircraft movement, and appropriate aircraft separation. As air travel has increased over the years, controller-pilot communication has concomitantly increased to the point that the voice communication channels have, at many locations, become saturated during peak aircraft traffic periods. Moreover, at the frequencies generally used for air traffic control voice communications, the communications are limited to line-of-sight. Thus, once an aircraft is no longer within a line-of-sight path with an air traffic control center, voice communication is no longer available.
To reduce the amount of controller-pilot voice communication that presently occurs, and to alleviate the reliance on the concomitant line-of-sight communications, a new data communication system has been developed that relies on data communication of certain controller-pilot communications. With this new communication system, some routine controller-pilot communications that are presently transmitted over a voice communications channel can be transmitted over a data communications channel, thus freeing up the voice communications channel for the less routine messages. For example, the data communication system allows various textual aircraft clearance messages to be transmitted and received, to and from, an aircraft over a data channel. These textual messages are presently processed and displayed via a separate, dedicated message display system.
Although the present controller-pilot data communication system implementation is generally reliable, safe, and reduces the communication load over the voice communication channels, it does suffer certain drawbacks. For example, the textual messages that are transmitted to and from an aircraft are standardized, thus pilot initiated textual messages are presently created using a “cut-and-paste” implementation, in which the pilot selects one or more standard portions of text from a list and places it in the message. This operation can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and can distract from the pilot's main tasks. Moreover, because the system is implemented separate from the aircraft flight management system, if a clearance message transmitted to the aircraft instructs the pilot to modify the aircraft's current flight plan, once the pilot acknowledges the message, the flight plan is updated, either automatically or by the pilot, in the aircraft flight management system. Again, this added operation can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and a distraction to the pilot. Moreover, because the messages are displayed on a separate display, the pilot's attention may be diverted away from the main flight deck display(s).
When Air Traffic Control sends clearance messages to an aircraft, the pilots currently need to interpret how the clearance impacts their current flight path in order to determine whether they can comply with the clearance. They also have to visualize what the new flight path or trajectory will look like. Therefore, pilots are susceptible to safety-impacting misinterpretations, unanticipated A/C inabilities to achieve the clearance, and other types of mental transformation errors. Even with the updated clearance displayed on another display, the pilots must consider whether this new clearance is safe considering environmental and avionic factors.
Hence, there is a need for a system and method that addresses one or more of the above-noted drawbacks. Namely, a system and method for transmitting, receiving, initiating, and displaying textual air traffic control clearance messages that is less cumbersome, less time-consuming, and less distractive to a pilot, and/or alleviates the need for a pilot to separately update the aircraft flight plan using the flight management system when the textual clearance message requests such a modification, while providing notification of 1) a safety alert when the clearance message puts the aircraft at risk, e.g., due to terrain, traffic, and weather, 2) an inability to comply alert due to constraints of aircraft performance based on, e.g., current position, altitude, heading, speed, vertical speed, and available thrust, and 3) a negative impact alert due to the affect of the clearance on aircraft efficiency, e.g., time, fuel consumption, and noise and emission environmental concerns. The present invention addresses one or more of these needs. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.